Hometown Cha Cha Cha Ep 1 - The Penguin & The Polar Bear [Podcast]

Streaming Banshees

Podcast Transcript

Episode 3: The Penguin & The Polar Bear

Date: February 2, 2022

Beep: Hello and welcome back to Streaming Banshees, your TV book club on the internet. I am Beep, you can reach me on Twitter @beepsplain, and I am joined as always by the lovely CC.

CC: Hey guys, you can find me on Twitter @acapitalchick. 

Beep: Awesome. And also don't forget to visit our website streamingbanshees.com. That's where you can find a lot of posts and deep dives and really great articles by super smart people about different shows and things that they're digging into. Our Twitter is @TVBanshees. 

Beep: Today we'll be covering episode one of Hometown Cha Cha Cha. For our listeners, this is a rewatch podcast. So we've seen all the episodes. Hopefully you have to please go finish it if you have it and then come back and we would love to talk to you about our thoughts from the end to the beginning and back again.

Isn’t it wild to think these first two episodes and episodes 15 and 16 are from the same television show?

CC: Yeah. Even as I was watching it and I was like, wow, this is really like just a perfectly executed, very charming kind of classic romcom opposites attract set up this, this is, this rewatch is why, this is why we do it because the, the seeds that are sown in this episode and the depth to interactions or conversations or lines of dialogue or the way the director has set things up with either what's happening in a scene or the way scenes are edited, there is a depth of meaning there that we couldn't possibly have appreciated on first watch.

So there's this poignancy to scenes when you go back and rewatch them, even in these kind of lighter breezy, first two episodes of the show that I'm just, it just makes me really glad that we're doing this because that we can kind of appreciate them more fully. 

Beep: Oh, absolutely. There's groundwork that was laid that we, we didn't even know to look out.

CC: So, you know, I think these two episodes really sort of highlight it almost reminds me of the classic Jane Austen romantic comedy setup, that you have two people seemingly from different classes. They don't seem to like each other very much. But, but Shin Ha-eun, is setting it up so that their character arcs are clearly going to be intertwined and, and the best at least for me, the best kind of romantic storytelling is when their character arcs are so intertwined that they're really going to come out on the other side of the journey transformed by one another. 

Beep: The fact that they don't have a choice about it. It's my favorite. 

CC: Right. 

Beep: You’re literally running into this person every five minutes until your life changes.

CC: That's a small town man. So you know, which is also where a lot of Jane Austen novels take place in small villages where you keep running into the same person. 

Beep: Yeah. And they couldn't really travel either. I mean, you're, you're dealing with a different time.

CC: Right. So there's a lot in these first two episodes that kind of remind me, and I'll kind of reference them as we go through, but this sort of like whether it's Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Emma or, you know, even sort of Shakespeare”s Taming of the Shrew or Much Ado About Nothing, this, this banter back and forth between two seeming polar opposites and, and Shin Ha-eun is so clever in the way she plays with a phrase that we use all the time: polar opposites. Right? But she focuses in on, yes, they are on literally opposite sides of the globe. But as they’ll point out later on in the show, they also have a lot in common. 

And so we have, and these first two episodes, the penguin and the polar bear crashing together, but there's even seated in, clues or on rewatch these kinds of pauses as a characters taking in with somebody else's saying that points to all of the things that Chief Hong, and Hye-jin – very important things– that they have in common. They both come from very humble beginnings. They both work very hard. They both have childhood loss of parents. They're both lonely and they're both willing to help others. Even if it seems more sort of even in ways that may seem to annoy each other at first. 

But what I, what I love is that even in these sort of early two episodes that are heavy on the, the comedic and sort of leaning in on, you know, sort of a dynamic that Hollywood used to do really well like A Philadelphia Story or Roman Holiday, or When Harry Met Sally, where you have kind of these opposites attract and, and this like kind of whip, smart dialogue going back and back and forth, like “Don't, you know who I am? “Yeah, a penniless woman.” That kind of banter. That even romantic comedies, I feel like at least as an American viewer, we kind of haven't been doing them so well, or maybe at all for a long time. That you can make it doesn't have to just be drama that makes very astute or poignant observations about life. 

And of course not, right? Like, we study Austen and Shakespeare and the romantic comedies, you know, at university, because they have deeper things to say. I feel like we've kind of lost that thread. We used to do it really well here in the US but I was reminded even in these early episodes, these episodes still have very smart things to say, even if they are lighter in tone than what, then what's going to come. 

Beep: Yeah. And I think the thing that I love the most about the show as a whole is just that there are three dimensional characters, even in the background. Everybody gets a chance to have like an inner thought life that we get to see it's not. And I think CC, this is kind of what you're referring to the romcoms if you will, that we still make in the US are a lot of times really shallow. And we think of them as less than, because really all they have is, is kind of a quirky setup. And then it's like, you know exactly how it's going to go in a three-act structure and this is going to happen. This is going to happen and that's going to happen. But the characters are usually pretty flimsy, which is actually kind of, it's good that we got an entire series instead of, you know, just a couple hour movie that gives a lot more opportunity for that, but still Shin Ha-eun took that and ran with it. 

I mean, she didn't have to make people that were this robust and had this much interconnectedness. And I love that the story here is really just about the place and the people. There's not this huge plot set up, you know, it's just “city dentist comes to small town.”

CC: Yeah, yeah and it is quite – It's not, I mean, you and I have, for example, we've done a podcast about a very intricate very intricate sci fi time travel show, where the plot, you know, took a rewatch to like fully appreciate it. But, but you know, the reason why we wanted to do that was because it was about characters and Shin Ha-eun is quite, I think, brave in saying, no, the story is about these people, average people in their everyday lives with all of the random or annoying things that may happen during the day to an inconveniences, to some of the greatest heartaches that people can face in their lives, like death and divorce and so on. And she's like, that's the story. 

And particularly in episode two, she really kind of from that opening just to go to your point, Beep the, the opener of that episode, very clearly steaks out this is an ensemble I'm hinting to you, that I'm going to be telling many stories. And I mean, even if you were to take, if you're even to compare this show to sort of all of the American romcoms that you and I have been watching here in the states, Mi-seon is the perfect example of that. Like how many times have we watched, for example, Kathryn Hahn played the best friend in a romantic comedy and she literally has nothing to do, but sit there and listen to the lead talk.

And, and that's where you think, you know, that's what you think Mi-seon’s role is going to be, but she's going to end up moving to this town and having her own story and her own romantic plot and her own, you know, things going on. She's a fully realized person that you're going to love and think about as a fully realized character at the end of the story, as much as the female lead.

Beep: She's not just there to help pick out outfits and hairstyles.

CC: Right. And, and the grandmothers are not just sort of the cute you know, elderly people who have some nuggets of wisdom, no Gam-ri is central, central to the story and we are going to someday sob over her. 

Beep: Literally every time she's brought up, I just feel this prick in the back of my eyes. Like, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it.

CC: I know. I know, I know. I know. So let's dive in because there's so much set up character-wise, thematically, that it's really really masterful and it's just so fun to appreciate on a rewatch. And, and the first is I don't know about you, but I got sort of nostalgic with the first opening image of Hometown Cha Cha Cha is this boat on the top of the hill. And it is also the final image of the show at the end of episode 16. I was just thinking back and sort of like the journey of sort of both emotionally as the audience and also how the boat just comes to mean so many things over the course of the show. 

And, and, and we, we talked on our last podcast sort of perhaps the roots of, you know, obviously it's a seaside village and so, you know, fishing and boats are part of, sort of the day to day commercial life of a seaside village. But, but a boat also obviously has a connection to what we talked about in the last podcast with Thoreau and sort of a boat symbolizing a connection to somebody who's gone. In Thoreau’s case it was his brother and for Chief Hong it's his grandfather and his grandfather's profession, it was his grandfather's boat.

CC: And so at first this boat on a top of a hill, like, doesn't make sense. Why, why is something that belongs in the water on top of the hill, away from the water? And so it's kind of symbolic of a mystery. I think you can say it's also perhaps symbolic of Chief Hong as we're going to come to wonder why is this genius who's gone to such a prestigious university and could be doing anything with his life, working for the minimum wage and doing odd jobs in a tiny village? It's also going to become sort of a flashpoint of Realist versus Romanticist debates between Hye-jin and Chief Hong: What's the point of something that's of no use that's sitting at the top of the hill?

And then ultimately at the end, it's going to be a symbol of, of human connection, community and relationships that a boat is what can offer shelter to human beings in sort of this, whether it's calm or stormy ocean serving as a metaphor for life and everything that life can throw at you.

And it's, so the symbolism is so rich and how this show opens up that we opened with the bow and then the boat is reflected in the skyscraper.

Beep: That is a beautiful shot.

CC: Yeah, it is beautiful. And the whole back and forth, I mean, at first, you know, first viewing you're like, oh, this is kind of setting the stage, but just these opening images are so meaningful. So the boat is reflected in the skyscraper. We have, we have the rural and the urban. You have the symbol of Chief Hong and the symbol of where Hye-jin is in Seoul. Then the camera pulls back and I get sort of chills now, when I see those series of bridges over the Han River, because I am, I immediately think of Chief Hong's story and what we're going to learn about him and, and being on one of those bridges. 

But the director is also what we can only know when we get to the end of the episode, he's showing us how this polar bear and penguin are beginning their days in such very different places. Hye-jin is running on a bridge in the center of Seoul on a set, determined path. You know, it's even the translation if you're watching in subtitles is, you know, “stay to the right,” you know, they're giving us even the directions in the subtitles she's running, it's competitive. It is, it is all in just like 40 seconds everything that is about living the fast pace in a city, you're staying on your path, you're doing what you're supposed to do, it's fast paced, it's competitive, you're racing against others. And then you've got what we will learn later, Chief Hong is in the middle of the ocean on a fishing vessel. Their two days could not be more polar opposite. 

Beep: Absolutely not. I feel for her when she comes back from her run, because I somewhere we've all experienced this to some degree. I mean, she's stuck in this elevator with this older woman, she's trying to be respectful. And yet she's, she's also throwing every cue whatsoever of “please stop talking to me.”

I mean, we understand that here, too. That's kind of a universal thing. Whenever you are around people that you don't know, especially in an urban area, you know, you're like, okay, I mean, we're neighbors, but literally you just live over there because we have high rises. Like I don't, I don't need to speak.

CC: Well, yeah. And the thing is, is like, what I think is so interesting is this story is going to end up having elderly women and sort of these grandmothers play such an important role, but, but in this elevator conversation this woman throws out everything that like, as a young single woman, you're like, oh my god, did you really just comment on whether or not I'm married?

Did you criticize whether I got too much take out, like there's all of these things that happen. I'm like, oh my god, like my mom criticizes that much I order takeout too. Right? Like there's so much that that happens with her. And you and I were talking about this sort of before we recorded to sort of there's there's things that are, I mean, obviously the story is firmly rooted in, in South Korea, but anywhere where you live there, where there is this urban rural divide, it reminded me of like times where, you know, I would, I came from living outside of like one of the biggest cities in the U S and then I went to college somewhere that was much smaller. and just trying to like check out at the grocery store, I was like, oh my god, everybody just wants to have like a conversation. And like, know about my day, what is this? Right? Like you're so used to it being so transactional in a bigger city and, and the whole idea that she doesn't even know this person who's living on her floor is so relatable if you live in a city in a large building like that, 

Beep: Yeah. Whereas in, like you were saying in a small town, I mean, just leaving the grocery store, you might find out that the cashier’s son is in rehab and you’ve nver met this person before.

CC: Absolutely. Yeah, because this is people have the time to have that conversation. Yeah. What I think though is, there are a lot of tiny details that even as we are watching Hye-jin and in sort of her urban professional life in this very sophisticated, busy clinic, there are all these little clues seeded.

For example, she's a dentist, but she still sits down to help a member of her staff lay out the magazines on the coffee table. She's gonna buy expensive shoes, but she has been waiting for the promo code so that she can get a discount. There's, there's all of these little clues, even before we get to how she's going to lose her job spectacularly that are hints that even though we have this sophisticated urbanite, there is, there is this person that we're going to come to know and love.

And they have all these little clues to who she is, even in the beginning. 

Beep: I love that she is speaking to this woman in the elevator. Just my favorite little weird quote of this exchange is when she's asking her, you know, like all these small talk questions, like what do you do? And, you know, whatever.

Beep: And she's like, my daughter works for a company and she says, I also worked for a company.

CC: No, because you know, if she had said I'm a dentist that she's immediately going to get 10 questions about dentistry.

Beep: When I watched this time and, and maybe I'm reading into it a little, and I'll acknowledge that, but I still think there's something to be gained from it. I never thought before about kind of noticing that she has a bit of a problem with authority. She doesn't necessarily want anyone older, you know, telling her what to do.

She's always been self-sufficient, she's gotten herself to where she is and she has a wisdom of her own that she doesn't necessarily take very well from other people. And then I think the idea that her mother dying is a form of abandonment and then afterwards her father turned, you know, more to the bottle than to taking care of her. So I don't think she has a really keen, like for people who have been given authority over her, which I find very interesting.

CC: Well, she, I mean, she's had to be very, as her father later says she raised herself, you know, she's been independent for a very, very long time. So, I mean, as any woman in her thirties, I don't think anybody enjoys being told by older people, you should do this, or why are you living your life like that?

But particularly somebody who was packing her own lunch as a child and getting herself to school, you know, she's been, she's been doing this on her own for a long time.

Beep: I like that she has that fire in her though. 

CC: Yeah.

Beep: At the same time, I'm saying that she kind of has a problem with authority. The flip side of that is she's not afraid to stand up when she knows that she's right. Just because they are a person of authority, which I like.

CC: Right. I think Hye-jin is the kind of person, particularly when you rewatch this and you know, how much she had to pinch pennies and how hard she had to work that even though we, we think she is this shopping for expensive shoes and enjoying luxury kind of person, she appreciates how much a dollar is worth perhaps as much as Chief Hong, she just expresses it differently. Because we are now, you know, we now know that this person who's sitting here listening to her boss try and take this woman for a ride had, you know, was literally living off sausages in her backpack as when she was in university.

So she appreciates how much that money is worth, particularly when the patient expresses that it is her daughter's hard earned money and it is a mother. And I don't think it's a coincidence that, I mean, I think Hye-jin is the kind of person that isn't going to take anybody for a ride as we see sort of later on what sort of the dental care choices she makes and Gonjin, but, but I don't think it's a coincidence that this is a mother.

And that is what sort of triggers this passionate, I mean, wow, she spectacularly quits her job.

Beep: I mean, and I feel like the scene is this something you can watch for yourself when you want to do that, but aren't in a position to because some serious fist pump angle to the way that she's speaking to this person who is, you know, theoretically much more, not necessarily qualified, but just much more has a lot more experience than her.

And what they're talking about though, has little to do with experience and is like all about integrity.  And it is good that she has that because, and they specifically show that lady as almost like a foil of saying this woman has worked very hard to get where she is, but she has standards. She's willing to work to earn that money. She is not willing to get it in ways that are unseemly.

CC: Right. Yeah. Which is again, sort of a, when you stop and think about it, something that she has in common with somebody who seems like her polar opposite like Chief Hong, you know, which you will say to him later on, “I worked very hard.” Being a dentist is hard work and she's not willing to just take somebody for a ride and, and recommend services that they don't need just to make a fast buck and she's going to lose her job over it. 

Beep: What I really like about the first episode is even this early, they're taking a character who's essentially, you know, from a tropey standpoint, like, oh, she's kind of the unlikable one and she'll need to change, but immediately showing her as three-dimensional like, she's so much more complex than just, you know, I am a fancy dentists from the city and that makes me better than you. Like, no, she has, there's so much underneath the money stuff.

CC: Yes. I mean her entire course of her life changes because of this act of integrity. Now it's also because she gets wasted  and posts on a forum going off on her boss, which is also a character trait of Hye-jin. She will get drunk often and act impulsively when she gets drunk. And that is also going to move the plot forward in later, very exciting ways.

But I was kind of chuckling to myself as you know, I don't, I think maybe there have maybe many people in the audience that when she wakes up the next morning after kind of a big night she's like, oh crap, what did I do? And it's so –she is so relatable. I love how she is brave and has a lot of integrity as intelligent and is competitive and doesn't want to settle and wants the best for herself, but she also flies off the handle, gets drunk, makes terrible professional decisions while she's drunk of posting something on a professional forum going off on her boss. I just like that just also make you cringe and be like, oh girl, what are you doing? Which is so wonderful. I love that she is a female character that gets to be all of those things. She's somebody that as a character I respect and I admire and I want to cheer for, but she also screws up. 

Beep: I think when I see this. We always hear about, you know, so-and-so's getting drunk, like take their phone because you don't want them to drunk text. Okay. So they're done texting. Great. Let's elevate ourselves to, okay now we're going to contact the boss directly by sending a bad email. Okay. No, we didn't do that. She just keeps escalating all those steps. And now we're just going to call her out on a professional forum and level this woman. I mean, that's it, that's a rough night.

CC: Yeah. And the thing is, is it is a character flaw that she words  –here it's obviously she's drunk and she's posting, but, but as we will see in the, in the next two episodes, and as the show goes on, words fly out of her mouth that sometimes shouldn't and she is very lucky that Chief Hong is someone who also observes her acts and not just what she says in these first two episodes. And he's got his own flaws, which we'll get to. And he's lucky that he's got somebody patient like Hye-jin who's willing to kind of tease those out and put up with quite a lot of lecturing in these first two episodes. 

I love this scene when, after she's lost her job and she's sitting for drinks with her best friend. First of all, it is the sort of pinnacle of urban sophistication right there, like in this darkly lit restaurant, there's like this sophisticated music playing and they're drinking red wine. It's sort of like a high top table– such a contrast to where they're going to end up and also to when they will be on their girls trip later on and Hye-jin will be sort of waxing romantically about what she misses in Gongjin right?

But her motto, I don't know if you caught this Mi-seon is like, “What's your motto again?” “Don't be nosy and focus on myself” and it's like, wow, that motto is about to get blown up.

Beep: What I love about that is from her penguin to polar bear relationship, Chief Hong is incredibly nosy. And he focuses on everyone else. This is where that polar opposite actually is going to super butt heads. They’re going to lock horns over this. This is where, I mean, he is just the complete opposite of this. He's going to get into your business and he's involved with absolutely everybody.

CC: Yeah, but they're also going to change each other for the better because she, even though I think we, as we've said, see that caring for other people is always a part, has always been a part of who she is, as we will see in a very moving flashback at the end of episode 15, she's always been the kind of person who would pull over and call a hospital and make sure somebody who looks like they need help is okay.

But she is going to become someone who is intertwined in her community and, and intercede to help people like from everything, from helping a kid who's crying to delivering someone's baby.

Beep: You know, as you do. 

CC: Then you have Chief Hong who is so focused on everybody else because he, when it comes to his own life, he is stuck in the past and closed off to a future for himself. And so, you know, to go back to sort of what we were beginning to at the beginning, their character arcs are so intertwined, which, you know, is just really the best it's the best kind of storytelling. It's my favorite kind of romantic storytelling because they transform one another. And yet, you know, still hold onto sort of the essence of, of who they are. 

Beep: Oh, a hundred percent. I enjoy immensely about this show that it is not about one saving the other. It is about them constantly saving each other where one has a strength, the other has a weakness and it's about them finding balance both individually and together.

CC: Yeah. And I, you know the day that she lost her job, she bought these shoes. Obviously these shoes are so important to the story. And I think it's sort of interesting the role that shoes and running paths and roads, and whether you're following the road, whether you're making a U-turn in the road, where our shoes leading you, it plays such an integral part in these early episodes that are sort of, I think, symbolic of sort of the larger decisions, life decisions that characters are making.

But the way she describes these shoes is that it's really a gift to herself. And she says, it's a symbol of better days to come. Which, you know, on the surface, you'd be like, why did you buy such an expensive pair of shoes on the day that you lost your job? Right? But this is, but this is, you know, now that we know more about Hye-jin how much she had to scrimp and save and work to get herself through school, the way she was made fun of by others who are more fortunate and the way that she dressed that this is all tied up in sort of her self-worth in a way that is not, you know, it may not be how everybody expresses sort of that sort of self care, but that's how she does. And it's because she's earned it.

Beep: And in a sense it's not empty to her. She, you know, I mean the sign of better days to come on me, she's looking forward to a future where she will continue to work hard and where that will not have been a bad choice. Like it's almost something that's driving her in a small way.

CC: Yeah. I think what is, what also struck me in sort of these opening scenes of Hye-jin in Seoul with the exception of what we will learn is maybe her only real friend, when Chief Hong asks her to name her friends and she just says Mi-seon like four times. Her life is very solitary. She's running alone. She lives alone. Her apartment is, you know, beautiful and very sophisticated, but it also feels in contrast to the set design in Gonjin, very sterile in its sophistication. You know, there is she's spirals in a way that is very relatable with ordering takeout and falling asleep on her couch. 

Beep: The pandemic. 

CC: Yeah. It's like, that's where I've been for two years, but, but yeah it is, it's very, it's kind of a, it's a very solitary existence 

Beep: And the interesting thing in contrast is that even though everything about Chief Hong's life looks different than that he's in the same place internally.

CC: Of loneliness. Yeah. The way they cut from where we leave off with Hye-jin’s story she gets the reminder after she's like, had a really terrible two weeks that it is the anniversary of her mother's birthday. And she looks at, she has this reminder of sort of her, the life defining loss of her childhood.

She looks at the photograph, which seems like maybe, maybe her last happy memory with her mother's illness, maybe the last trip that they took to Gongjin. And she, that in that picture, she smiling. And then the editing cuts to introducing us to the man who was the boy that made her smile. 

And it's just until you have seen that epilogue at the end of episode two, you almost don't appreciate how genius that cut is and how we move from Hye-jin’s story to our introduction –and man – it's a hell of an introduction. I am Chief Hong on a boat in the middle of the ocean, like Leonardo DiCaprio 

Beep: Very king of the world.

CC: Oh yeah. And it's that, that theme. I mean, he even has his own like Spanish guitar theme song, which is called I am Mr. Hong. 

Beep: every time that plays, because so often it plays right when he kind of shows up to, to save her in these little moments. And it just so sounds like the Zorro theme in my head 

CC: Yep. 

Beep: Here I am. And I just want him to like pull out his little fencing sword

CC: Or like, you know, suspenders or paintbrush or whatever his job is in the moment, but like, Yeah.

Beep: Of course.

CC: You cannot take for granted creating sort of an iconic character where you're like, oh, there he is with his backpack over his shoulder walking to a job. Right? Like all of the things that you now associate with Chief Hong is because they do such a wonderful job of building this character in the first two episodes. I mean, you're like he's on a boat in the ocean working as a fisherman. Like he's got like galoshes on and like the boots around his neck, like the waders.

And then he steps off the boat and he's like kind to immigrants. He speaks Russian, he's got peppermint tea for nausea. I mean, you just have all this like information thrown at you as the audience member that is just confounding, right? I mean, you are intrigued the way Hye-jin is intrigued because it doesn't seem to all fit together.

Beep: From the very beginning, he seems like the boat mom. This guy has everything you could possibly need to be better at this job and he's going to bring it around and make sure everyone has it. It’s funny.

CC: It is. And, you know again, one of the things that is so has sort of a different layer of meaning on rewatch is it is a great character introduction when we see him walking through the market, everybody knows who he is. He's knows who everyone is. Everyone has something to say to him. He's, you know, you fix this, come and look at a picture of my grandchild.

He, you know, he seems like the unofficial mayor of this village. It's also a striking contrast to urban life, right? Hye-jin doesn't even know who lives on her floor. But now that we know that this, that this identity and this role of Chief Hong is something that was his lifeline and something that the village kind of came together and gave to him to kind of pull him out of this hole that not even they really understood, but just starting to give him these odd jobs. This scene of him walking through the market is really kind of poignant because now we understand what this role means for his life. 

And it sort of reminds me and this kind of you know, we'll be talking about Ted Lasso next, but it reminds me of George Bailey from It's A Wonderful Life played by Jimmy Stewart. And these characters have some really key traits in common. It's also that movie is also a story about somebody who, who, what he has done for the community has made him central to the community, but also he is depressed and really questioning his own self-worth and also considers ending his life by throwing himself off a bridge into a river.

And there's a lot that like, as I was watching both this, the range of this character and sort of this performance of you can just tell from this performance like thatKim Seon-ho, as Chief Hong and why everybody loves this guy, but he can also do sort of these deep moments of pathos that really can move the audience to tears.

And I was just thinking sort of kind of reminds me of, sort of that introduction in It's A Wonderful Life where George Bailey sort of the man about town that everybody knows. But you don't know fully what's going on under the surface.

Beep: And the interesting part about that is it's the first step in his healing. Cause just like you said that this, I mean, this is what's keeping him going right now. Yes. It's to some degree, a coping mechanism, it's a defense mechanism. He's hiding a lot about himself personally, but it is the first step towards what he needs to have the support around him to become a more fully realized, emotionally speaking, human being.

CC: Yeah. It's community in action. But what is so interesting is if you notice every, every exchange is about somebody else. None of it is about him. It's about is somebody's hot water fixed; let me see the picture of your grandchild. Right? He doesn't offer anything about himself. 

Beep: No, there's no reciprocation.

CC: So I think it's time for our polar bear and our penguin to meet. Although I'm constantly like, man, I think of Hye-jin as the polar bear and it's really not fair. It's Chief Hong always needling her about being the heavy one because it's such an absurd... 

What I love about this, this meet cute, meet, awkward, meet is that it is a perfectly executed romcom trope. Right? She literally loses her shoe like Cinderella and this guy walks up in a wetsuit, right? Like when my, when I, when I was watching this with my daughter, she was like, she's gonna lose her shoe. She's gonna lose her shoe. And that when he walked out, she's like, wow but I was not expecting it to be a guy carrying a surfboard, looking like Keanu Reeves in Point Break, like well done.

Like, so there's that whole layer to it. That's just to show really having fun with these like romantic comedy tropes. But, but then there's this whole layer of meaning of them meeting on this beach where they have met twice before. And, and he is doing what he has always done, which is reaching out to help, which is a choice that one of them makes in every single one of these meetings. And I guess we can conclude about every seven years, like the plant that her father talks about in a later episode.

Another trip that this, show plays with is sort of these like fated childhood lovers, but all of their meetings are purely coincidences where someone made a choice when they saw someone in need, whether it was a sad little girl on the beach, a girl that looked a little bit lost and didn't have enough change to buy a snack, a man in a hospital gown on a bridge at night, or now a woman walking around barefoot, not having her shoes on the beach.

All of these meetings are coincidences transformed because somebody decided to make the choice to help somebody else. And they truly only become important quote unquote, transformed into “fate” because they have a whole journey that we will watch where they make a series of choices to come together.

And they don't realize that they have this connection until after they've decided to do that. So I love that it is playing with sort of this past connection, but it is always rooted in individual choice and sort of that free will in a way that plays with the trope in a really interesting way and makes individual choice paramount.

Beep: What I love about the shoes is kind of what you had mentioned before is it's, it's a bit of an ode to Cinderella. You know, this, the guy’s going to show up out of nowhere and, you know, save you. And yet there's still a shoe missing – very much like the antithesis of Cinderella at this point, because there is still a shoe missing and this beautiful savior does not care.

CC: No, like where's my other one. Right. I mean, I, you know, there's a lot of really fun things about it, right? Like we talked in our last podcast about how much the elements play a role in this story right? And it's the ocean that took away her shoe and the ocean that brings it to Chief Hong. But I love that their meeting is really these two characters at their worst.

And it's really funny to watch them once you've gotten to the end of the show and they have become so dear to the audience, it is really funny and interesting to watch them meet individually at their worst. She is presumptive, doesn't say thank you. Seems steeped in privilege that she's like, yeah can you go find the other one?

Right. Like you're just like, oh my god girl, like just say, thank you. Like figure it out. 

You're like, this is, this is like our beloved Chief Hong and he's kind of a standoffish jerk, right? Like he's so, I mean, even the way the sort of acting, you know, he's like running his hands through his hair, he's getting the water out of his ear.  It's almost like she doesn't even have like his full attention. And he's just immediately, I mean, kind of with good reason, like when she was like, go find, so the it's like, dude, you're not doing to say thank you. No, I'm not like, go ahead and walk barefoot right?

But then of course he like pauses and he can't just walk away and leave her barefoot, right? 

Like, so again, even if he is seemed kind of standoffish in a way that is quite a marked contrast to the way that he has acted, for example, with the, with the Russian immigrant on the boat. And maybe that's just howhe treats outsiders. And we can kind of understand now why Chief Hong is so suspicious of outsiders, he's hiding a lot. and, and, you know, eventually an outsider is the one who's going to out his story in front of the whole village right? So I feel like we have a little bit of more pieces now to understanding now that we've gotten to the end of the story, why he is so like, he can't help but help, but he is also quite standoffish with somebody who's clearly not from his village. 

Beep: Yeah, he’s just reaming her. I think what's interesting is they give you a little bit there to empathize with both sides because yeah, I mean, she's being ridiculous. She's asking for more from a stranger than is acceptable and he's just giving it back to her. I mean, I felt a little bad for her, but then I also understood.

So it was interesting for right off the bat for them to show you both sides of where they're coming.

CC: Right, right. And you know, there are so much about the flashbacks and this scene where the director and the editing really plays with point of view. So when she first, when she first walks on the beach the costuming is so striking the way they have her in that like white and navy blue with the red purse that's such like such a sophisticated, urban look against sort of this, you know, seaside. Then my eyes were really on her, but I didn't realize until I went back and watched that from the very moment that she walks on the beach, Chief Hong is right there in the center of the screen and the water on his surfboard.

But because we're in her point of view, we're focused on her. At the end of the episode, they're going to turn it around and we're going to be in his point of view, seeing her walk onto the beach. 

But they do the same thing with the flashback. So the flashback we're going to see right now as her memory is her playing on the beach with her parents. And then at the end of episode two, we will enter that scene along with Chief Hong and his grandfather, and come up on to Hye-jin as a child. So they're always playing with point of view. There's always more to a scene or to a person's point of view than we first realized, which kind of beautifully is sort of a technique that the narrative uses that ties thematically with this idea that we really never know the full story about what's going on with someone. 

But I thought what was really interesting too, in this childhood memory is that Hye-jin's mother cautions her not to run on the beach, don't run, you're going to hurt yourself. Which, you know, as a mom is something that I probably say 50 times a day, but it's also, but it's also, it's a kid running on the beach, right?

Like that's what kids are supposed to do. But her childhood is colored by this overhanging dread of illness and this ever-present looming loss. And so watching her as a child running and then seeing her father covering her mother with the blanket, and then she kind of grows somber. I then now think of the two of them on the beach when he tells her let's just run and play on the beach and embrace, you know, embrace risk, it's gonna rain. So just run into and she's like, yeah, but what if I catch a cold? And those, this flashback and that scene are tied when it comes to Hye-jin’s perspective on life and managing risk. And it ties back to, to this flashback and you can kind of, it's very elegant storytelling because it tells us so much about what her childhood was like and why she approaches risk when it comes to sort of the personal in a way that then is so beautifully opens up both in the scene where they are running and playing in the ocean but of course also at the very end, when she's the first one running into the ocean to get his shoe.

Beep: And it's interesting. This memory, I know it gets shown from, from the other point of view at the end of episode two, but it is interesting how it's connected that this day is for both of them basically the last family picture that they'll take before things get completely upended.

CC: Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to that flashback at the end of episode two, but it's the only time they will ever all be together with their sort of beloved biological family members and the two of them. And the reason why they have both of those pictures of the person they lost. 

I thought also that scene where she calls her father both tells us so much about what her life is like, that it is unusual for her father to receive a phone call from her unless something's wrong.

You know, it kind of goes to show, not, not quite estranged, but distant. And then when they get off the phone, the stepmother says to him, and we will learn later on that Hye-jin is very similar to her father. Why do you have to be so cold? You know, why do you come off that way? When we know that he cherishes his daughter and we watch Hye-jin’s interactions with so many people in the town and she does come off as cold when she actually is a very warm and caring person who, you know, basically is going to have an interaction with every single member in this village, every single character from this village and help them in some way when she didn't have to.

Beep: What I found really interesting about that exchange is that it was pointedly put into the episode that when the father hung up, he asked the date and he realized what it was, you know, that, oh, it was mom's birthday, whatever. And even after kind of having that bit of epiphany, he didn't reach back out. Because you would almost think, you know, he realized like, oh, it's her mom's I know where she is and call to potentially console her or just to talk with her for a few minutes.

But he didn't, because I think in a lot of ways, he's just so steeped in regret that he just piles them on at this point. And, and doesn't know how to reach out, doesn't know, you know, whatever. So even when he realized the opportunity he was presented with, he didn't take it.

CC: Yeah. It's interesting because Hye-jin is such a complicated character, right? So often she can seem cold and standoffish in a way that is both similar to and different from Chief Hong. But she also blurts out how she feels, which is very brave. And sometimes, I mean, she loses her job. It's also why she's going to be the first one – I mean, Chief Hong will say she's brave and she's honest, right? She's the one who's going to say I like you first, right? 

So, something that can be both a strength and a weakness, right? This impulsiveness, she's a passionate person who says what's on her mind for better or worse. In these first two episodes, definitely for worse though. But we're going to come to also, I am going to be staggered by how brave she is emotionally, the things that she says out loud, what she expects for herself. Really kind of a role model for how women, both how women should expect to be treated, but also how you treat others. She's just a wonderfully complex character that I'm just like never going to stop yelling about because when women don't often get to be this complex. 

Like we're, it's getting better. But you know, she's, she's a really complex every day. And not just sort of like, I feel like we got very complex women and a lot of, for example, like post-apocalyptic shows where they have a lot of like very complex moral choices and these are like everyday complex moral choices or interacting with people.

And sometimes she gets it right, really right. And sometimes she gets it really wrong. Like, like we all do. 

Beep: Yeah. And you were saying before how she kind of, she comes up and she seems, you know, privileged and she's got that whole thing going on, but I think, you also said, you know, as a woman, she knows how she should be treated. I think a lot of people would balk at being handed toilet shoes to walk up the beach.

CC: Oh my god. Absolutely. I mean.

Beep: We count that as privileged and materialism.

CC: And I don't know. I also don't know if that's like a translation thing, but the English translation. Oh, man. I mean, it's not like she's got a lot of choices and it's, it's amazing cause she's gonna wear those shoes for like the next two episodes. Like, you know, she's like shuffling all around town like following him, like setting up her business. Like she spends like 24 hours in those shoes. And you know, they were like on some random guy's feet and there's some from some random restaurant, like, I mean, it's just from the bathroom. Like it's, I totally feel for her even while I am also could easily put myself in Chief Hong’s shoes of like, dude beggars, can't be choosers.

Like I'm literally giving you my shoes and walking barefoot into town for you. 

The other thing that's really interesting as we rewatch it and we'll get into the details of it when we get to the epilogue, but watching him be this standoffish is also a clue to how good Chief Hong is at hiding his feelings and what he's thinking this whole episode.  Because he seems on first watch, very annoyed by her. Like, he's like, he's just like, dude, why are you touching me? Why aren't you like, as much as she's like, why are you always here? He's like, why are you always here? 

Beep: Yeah. And he's very much like she was to the neighbor in the elevator. Like, I'm sorry. Why are you still talking to me?

CC: Like, dude, are you asking me for money now? Like what, but the thing is, is now we know not only from the epilogue of this episode, but also from their proposal that he was intrigued by her from the beginning and was watching her and observing. And the only times we see him smile around her is when she's not looking. You know, like he pointedly will turn the smile off when he hands her, that smoothie later when he's talking to the woman, right? But when we get to watch him watching her, he's smiling at her. And so it's fascinating to watch how standoffish he is, because it's a clue of just how high this guy has built up his walls.

That even as the audience members, when we were watching him from Hye-jin's perspective, we would have no idea that he was intrigued by her, that he couldn't take his eyes off her, that he is noted all of the good things that she has done while he is to her face, clearly annoyed with how privileged she seems.

So it's just very kind of interesting all the different layers that you can kind of dig into on rewatch of just being like, wow, you've got an unbelievable poker face, Chief Hong. 

Beep: Yeah. Yeah. We're seeing a little bit of an emotional deficit there with his actions. Cause it's very middle school boy. Like I think I like this girl, so I'm just going to be mean and see how it works out.

CC: Yup. 

Beep: But I think also he's kind of playing with her. Like he's kind of pushing you know, when, when he's not specifically having conversations with her when he's not right there with her, he gets to just observe which I get the feeling he likes to do in general, because I think he's a very keen judge of people and he likes to observe. But when he's with her, it's just like, he's just poking to see what he can, you know, to get a rise out of her, to see what she'll do.

CC: If we follow sort of the chain of where shoes take her, her shoes lead her to Chief Hong, his shoes then lead her to Haw-jung's fish restaurant, which then sets her on her new path in her career.

Beep: With different shoes.

CC: With different shoes, eventually. Yeah. But you know on the way there, we, as the audience members learn what we realized that Chief Hong also observed is that even though she is having a pretty bad day – it's going to get worse – but pretty bad day. Her car won't start, she's lost her shoes. She stops and helps these two kids who are crying.

And I will tell you as the mom of three kids, when you're traveling, not everybody stops to help kids when they're crying. Sometimes they're very annoyed by them. So it is, it is a big character clue about the kind of person Hye-jin is that she steps in to help them. 

And she ends up at the fish restaurant and really movingly orders seaweed soup, which is meant to celebrate her mother's birthday even though her mother isn't there. 

And her conversation later with Chief Hong, when he asks her, why, why did you come to Gongjin? And she talks about wanting to remember people for not, not just the day that they died, but on the day that they were born. And that's why she's here. 

That it's this last, maybe this last place from her childhood where she remembers, even if it's sort of a bittersweet memory, cause she clearly remembers that her mother was ill. She's here to, to be close in this, bringing it back to sort of the Romanticist themes that we talked about in the last podcast. To be close in nature to the last place she was with with her mother, right? Like she doesn't go back to her childhood house or any, she goes back to that beach. 

And there's really sort of this lovely dialogue and then this kind of beautiful montage of the natural beauty where Haw-jung says Gongjin Harbor feels like my late mother's embrace to me. 

Beep: Yeah, I mean, could that have been more poignant and well-timed?

CC: Yeah, I mean, they both lost their mothers. And again, it's connecting with someone in loss that you seemingly on the surface don't have a lot in common with. And then the camera shows us flowers, the ocean waves, the lighthouse, birds, crab. It is as we talked in the last podcast, one of the sort of Romanticist lens montages of the show, and it is imbuing nature with these human characteristics that, that being in nature can feel like your mother who's gone like her physical embrace, that nature can comfort you.

Beep: Almost to the point where it's just helping you realize you're part of something bigger. These things continue to go on, like your mother's not there anymore, but the waves keep coming. 

CC: Yeah. She's also connecting with another human being about loss, even though they don't know it yet, they've both lost their mothers. And in that, you know, even though Hye-jin doesn't share that she takes that in and you know. 

Again, the writing, the storytelling is so detailed because when Haw-jung asks her, is this your first time in Gongjin? Hye-jin says, it's my second – no, it's my third time. And if you were an astute audience member, maybe your antennas went up and said, huh. 

We get just a few more scenes again, just sort of brilliant scenes building Chief Hong as a character, right? His phone is blowing up with everybody asking him to do literally like everything under the sun. He counts change so exactly that he has a changed purse and it's like, I, the last person I remember having a change purse was my grandfather. 

Beep: Yeah.

CC: Like it's so and maybe again, this is like urban/rural. I can't remember, I mean, and maybe also just because so much has moved to just not being cashed because of the pandemic that it is.

Beep: It's digital currency. And so, so often,

CC: It's so foreign and I almost feel everyone's annoyance as he is counting out coins to pay them like, right. But it's such a, it seems like a little detail, but every cent counts, right?

This is, and I think it's like so interesting the way he, so, so many times in this episode is counting things down to the cent is emphasizing hard work in exchange for cold hard cash because his former career investment banking is the opposite of. It is playing with, uh, no offense to any of our listeners out there who are investment bankers, it's playing with other people's money, right? It is making bets it's, you know, investing in things, but it is not laboring with your hands and receiving money in exchange. It's playing with other people's money who have done that. 

Beep: They may be calculated risk, but there's no guarantee that you're not going to lose everything.

CC: Right, right. And this is set, I do this, you pay me this, it is done, and I'm not going to profit more than that. Which is clearly something, you know, we know that he has now given away everything that he saved from that job. And he seems quite determined to never receive a raise. And that's, that's the deal he's made with himself as atonement you know, all of the things that we'll get into, but they are establishing it in all of these, you know, seemingly funny details, but it's all tied back to sort of the central mystery.

Beep: So Hye-jin now enters the cafe where she meets Oh Yoon the proprietor there, who is not super into cafe life, if you will. We find that through the episode, he doesn't really even know how to do most of the things in there. Often Chief Hong is in there making, you know, better coffee, better drinks, whatever it is he's serving up.

Whereas Oh Yoon, he's a very intriguing character. In the beginning, I was very put off by him. He seemed in a lot of ways to be overzealous much like, you know, we keep having these interactions where he's kind of like the woman that she was with in the elevator in the sense that she's now entered this place.

He's clearly a fixture here. She kind of can't, you know, get out of the conversation and he is pushing and he's asking, you know, do you know who this artist is? You know, whatever. And he's, he's searching for validation. He's searching for, you know, to have his ego stroked and the whole time she's like, I don't, I don't know what you're talking about.

And he, he just, he's fascinating in general because he is living his life so squarely in the past. Much like some of our other characters, but he's just doing it outwardly that he cannot be either in the, he cannot be in the present because he's so stuck there and he's, you know, it just reminds me, I don't know if like that guy in college, he's like, you got to listen to my song and you're just like, oh my god, please no. And it turns out to be good. And he had like a great album. It's just, it has that feel to it, you know?

CC: Yeah. He's basically created a Hard Rock Cafe to himself. 

Beep: Yeah.

CC: Like all the posters on the wall. She's like, I don't know the song. He's like, oh, well, I'm going to play the song for you right now. You're just like, oh my god, dude let it go. 

Beep: Oh yeah. I'm just trying to drink this terrible coffee. So yeah you just made me think of that because later on, you know, he's asking or Chief Hong asked him, “are you playing tonight?” So he basically has a cafe so that he can have gigs cause he allows himself 

CC: Yeah. 

Beep: Like on an open mic night sort of situation.

CC: But then when you rewatch it and you sort of know his full story, that he is a widowed father, you know, who lost his dream because his manager stole his money. But then obviously his career has also been put to the side because he is raising a little girl on his own. It is the only way that he's been able to sort of carve out a space for that part of him that's an artist, you know, within the practical that he's a single father who has to provide for his daughter and responsible for raising someone. So he's going to have to do it in the small town, in this cafe of his own creation. 

Beep: Absolutely. It's where he finds his comfort and there, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. He just, he's another character that through this series has to find some semblance of balance because you, I mean, you just, you can live in the past to some extent, but you're just going to be frozen, which I think is a lot of what's happening right now.

He's just, he's kind of stuck between two places and he's not committing to either of them,

CC: Yeah. Yeah. So that phrase that we talked about in the last podcast “lives of quiet desperation.” So many of these characters and Oh Yoon is sort of the first one we get the taste of, but we're going to see a montage at the beginning of the next episode, highlighting objects that everyone's holding onto that represents sort of that past

Beep: Tragedy, loss.

CC: Yeah. A divorce decree, a tape, the Sailor Moon wand, right? A suit hanging in a closet. All of them are symbols of past dreams, past losses and, and people really trying to grapple with the present and the future, given what they wanted in the past. 

Beep: Oh Yoon is just a  little less quiet about it.

CC: Yeah. If Chief Hong is the most clammed up, Oh Yoon is at the opposite end of the spectrum. We know what his deal is, right from the beginning. 

Beep: No walls.

CC: What I think is the little detail and I don't know if this is on purpose, but if it, if it was then it's brilliant is his song that Hye-jin eventually is like, yeah that actually wasn't my favorite, but his big, his big hit “Exercising in the Moonlight.”

She may not like that song, but that's exactly what she's going to be doing in the middle of the night after that flashlight hug, she's literally doing tae kwon do and the hula hoop and they're like doing yoga. Is this exactly what she's going to be doing. So in my head, I'm like maybe she just threw that on. 

Beep: She absorbed it.

CC: Right, right. The other is that after we kind of went down our thorough rabbit hole, one of the things that I think is so brilliant about how Hye-jin gets stuck and in Gong-jin is that it is because of an utter breakdown of technology. Her car won't start, the telecom is on fire. So her phone won't work. The ATM won't work. You realize how dependent this urbanite’s life is like a lot of us on technology. 

Beep: Yeah. Like us.

CC: Yeah. And it's a total breakdown of technology that is going to force her to stay in this rural place. And it's going to end up changing her whole life. And, you know, like when we were doing sort of our Thoreau  research, Thoreau who was somebody who hated the railroad and the telegraph.

So in the background, I like to picture that like somewhere there, the Romanticists are chuckling at this whole breakdown in technology, forcing her to stay in this village where she's going to sort of find her truth and her path close to nature. It's because technology completely broke down. 

Beep: It's crazy because all she has essentially is like a phone that doesn't work and therefore she can't get help with her car. So she can't go anywhere. She can't do anything. And I'm just sitting here thinking about all the technology we have to be having this conversation.

CC: Yeah. If I were her, I would have been screwed too. I wouldn't have had cash and yYeah. I'm 100% screwed. 

Beep: One of the things that I found super interesting when he comes in, obviously when he comes in, they're arguing over this 400o won that she needs to give, you know, for her coffee that she ordered, the daughter has now come into play. She is hilarious.
She's questioning everything. She's like, you're not really this person. You're not a dentist. We'll keep all your stuff, you know, whatever, all those silly things

CC: That fashion is a fake she's like, oh, she doesn't know how I value my brands. It's like the biggest insult. 

Beep: She’s so offended by everything. But she, so now she's in a position where she owes 4000 won. So those numbers to Americans, that always sounds huge, you know? Oh my gosh, that's so much. As of today of this recording, that is $3.34 in American money. And thinking, when has she ever been in a position that she is dependent on someone else for such a small thing?

CC: You know when Beep?  When she was a teenager in Gongjin and didn't have the change. And he gave it to her. 

Beep: Yep. And now she’s asking him for it. It’s a little bit of a different set up.

CC: Teenage Du-sik was a lot looser with his change when he saw her sad and in trouble that he is as an adult. 

From his point of view, he has already seen and been watching her help the two children. He's already been watching her and he knows that she is lonely and sad.
He knows that she's a good person. And sometimes to be quite honest, like the things that people do when you're not watching them is more meaningful than like what they say when you are.

Beep: And I think he knows that and it's very purposeful.

CC: Yeah. So, but he doesn't give an inch, right? He just lets her kind of like beg and prostrate herself.

Beep: She's floundering. Yeah. 

CC: Yeah. He just lets her and then he's just like, okay. So if you could earn the money you would, and it's like, dude, you're seriously going to make her march for like what seems like a very long time in these like toilet flip-flops and, and to process squid with your hands to earn what was it Beep, $3? He kind of looks like on his face, like he's enjoying it a little bit, right? 

Beep: I call this whole section, visiting the grandmas. He finds out the phones are down and there's the fire. And he runs into Eun-chul and tells him, you know, he's obviously tight with the police and he tells him that he's got it. And then she's just following him all around this village, as he goes and tells each of the little senior women, you know, that everything's okay.

And that if they need anything or whatever, to let him know. And the small lady who has him sit down and then gives him kind of a milk sort of thing. But then also brings one for her and it's oh my gosh. It's so sweet.

CC: There are so, so, so if we're going to do sort of the, a very elegant, rich character, rich framing, who these two people are,how different they are. This montage is so well done. And there are, there's so much dialogue that has, that's kind of signposting things. But also just sort of the way that they, the way that they stage it.

So you have him sort of, right. Like she's following him. And it's, it's interesting. Like she's following him. They're walking single file right? She's following the path that he is laying out for her right now.

Beep: Has no idea where he's going.

CC: Has no idea right? They go through the field. What's interesting is that in episode 14, he's going to lead her back to that field, but actually he's following her lead then.

And, and one of the great things about the show is that the first half of it is Chief Hong teaching Hye-jin how to become a member of this community. But the second half of it is Hye-jin bringing Chief Hong out of his cabin as we talked about before. 

So the structure is the first half, it seems like he's the one who has a lot to teach her and we watch how her character grows, but in the second half, it's going to flip. And I love the equality to that. Because, because right now it kind of has this, particularly we get into the next episode, this kind of Mr. Knightley and Emma dynamic, where he's kind of teaching her how to be kind of a more considerate, thoughtful, equal member of the community. And Hye-jin kind of has a lot to learn about how to do that.

But it's absolutely going to flip and she's going to have as much to teach him about being honest and about being brave and talking about things in the past and your feelings out loud. 

But so, she's following him. They're going to come back to this field where he's finally going to meet her quote, unquote, halfway, and promise to tell her his story.

Beep: Whereas right now it's why does he never answer my question? 

CC: That is such a great piece of dialogue. Why does he never answer my questions and he is going to do it constantly, constantly episode after episode. 

Beep: And now he's just going all over the place as if she's not even there.

CC: Yeah. Yeah. She's just expecting, right. And she's just, it's like, Yeah, it's so well done because you're just like, oh man, he is going to evade her questions for many, many, many, many hours until she called finally calls him on it and then it's going to break us when she finally does call him on it.

But, but also at the end, you know, in the finale, this single file walking through the field, which is actually one of the posters for the series. When it's, when it comes time for Gam-ri's funeral, they're going to be walking side by side in the field with their community.

And so there's all this symbolism sort of woven throughout the show about who's following who, when people are in single file, when people are side-by-side. And right now she's definitely just trying to keep up. And he is just striding as if she is not even there. 

but you know, we learn a lot about him. and it's such a contrast to the city, right? Like again, Hye-jin didn't know who her neighbors were on her floor. This is a place where there's someone who takes it upon themselves to go and tell the elderly that the telecom is out. 

Like it's, it's just, and that he is the person who's going to do that. And it's like on hand to do it, that he knows sign language. Bet she wasn't expecting that. She's, you know, she's just kind of watching, what is the deal with this guy? He shows up everywhere. There's Spanish guitar music when he does.

Beep: She hears that right?

CC: Oh yeah. In my head cannon, she hears that when he walks in. 

Beep: I am down with that. Yeah, okay. 

CC: Yeah. And then, you know, finally that leads us to the docks and there is this exchange that seemed, you know, that really hits differently when you rewatch it. 

And that is when she asks him, “What do you do for a living? I heard people addressing you as Chief Hong.” And he kind of pulls back a little bit and he's like, “Why would an outsider want to know that?” And then he changes the subject. 

Beep: You know, I never realized how many things, especially in these first couple episodes tied back to the conversation in the elevator. Because all he's doing right now is saying what she wanted to. Why are you worried about what I do, you're just my neighbor? Like, please go away. You know what I mean? Like he, he is saying what she attempted to be gracious about, even though she was still obviously very annoyed.

CC: Yeah, no, absolutely. But now she's, she's the one that's trying to be. She is, I mean, what's fascinating is she's so curious about him, right? So curious, like, what is his deal? When he walks away, she's like, oh, that guy is so weird. Right. And the next episode, but she's fascinated. She says later to him, I'm fascinated by you, right?

Like they're intrigued by one another. She just admits it sooner. But that question why “I heard people addressing you as Chief Hong.” We're not, he's not going to answer that question until the end of episode 15. And that answer goes to like the central mystery of what happened to him and how he recovered and why he is Chief Hong and what that means.

And here, it seems like just a passing exchange. But it's sort of laying the seeds to that question goes very deep and that is not something that he wants to talk about. And he just does, what, what is the signature Chief Hong move. He just changes the subject and is like, oh, we're here.

And that's the second time in this episode, at least we should just count how many times he evades answering her 

Beep: Mm, it's also indicative of how many times he may have been asked something of that nature when he came back.

CC: Yeah. And he calls her an outsider, right? 

Beep: That's what I mean, like people within the village very easily could have asked him, you know, cause obviously they have all these theories and rumors, but they, he could have been asked quite often when he came back. And it's kind of from the idea of like, I didn't tell them, like, why would I tell you? You're just like some rando.

CC: There's just what seems on the surface, like a huge clashing of class and, and views. And this is kind of like the, almost like Jane Austen of it, where you have two characters that come from different classes and seemingly have different sort of economic values.

He knows exactly what a minimum wage is, down to the cent. Because that is how he is paid in everything that he does. She's like, “wait, isn't that minimum wage?” Like, she wouldn't like, isn't it because she doesn't work for minimum wage obviously. And her, you know, my sympathies are real, like I cackled during the scene because it is so crazy that he is going to make her work by dissecting squid for over three hours to earn just under $4 to pay for a coffee.

Beep: And again, well, she gets a little more, cause she's able to spend it at the spa. She has her little, you know, you can see how she scrimped and saved. Cause she puts a little bit aside in case something happens. 

CC: Yeah. 

Beep: Again, this is a really interesting parallel of, you know, saying like, oh, she's in this different class and she's so kind of like hoity toity, but who wants to cut squid open if that's something that’s super gross if you're not used to doing? You know, it's something that she would consider, especially like grotesque. It's not like he asked him. Okay, well, can you work at the cafe for the next few hours? And let me be off. He took her to do something that he knew would mortify her.

CC: Yeah. And you know, it's so interesting too, is she gave free dental services today and barely even wanted to accept lunch in exchange for it. And so, so it's just like now she has to sit there and do this, like with her hands, which if you're not used to working like with fresh seafood, I mean, I think I probably would be also internally screaming and having to do this to pay for like a cup of coffee.

And like, but, but her responses are so like just the clashing of, on the surface class here: Do you know who I am? I don't know what the translation here is, but the translation in English is “I am a top level elite.” You're just like, oh, Hye-jin stop talking. 

Beep: Stop digging a hole. girl.

CC:So if we're going to flip this, the things that Chief Hong and the audience don't know about Hye-jin at this point is that nobody knows how much things cost more than she does. She was once at a counter as a teenager when he was there and didn't have enough to pay for even like a carton of milk and a snack. She had to work endless odd jobs and tutoring and lived off sausages in her backpack to get through school. So nobody knows better than she does the value of hard work or how much things cost. 

But we don't know that about her and neither does he. So again, it's all playing with sort of point of view that, but then when you rewatch it, you're like watching him kind of lecture her about this –and it's especially going to happen in the second episode – but there's a lot, he doesn't know about her either. And every time she mentions that in passing and he learns kind of one more little nugget of information about her, we will see his attitude about her, the way she approaches money soften, because he'll understand it.

Beep: But this is the first time too that we see Gam-ri. She is one of my favorite characters.

CC: So Beep just to start you off, I just want to point out that the first thing that Hye-jin and Gam-ri together is preparing squid. When we will later learn that is Gam-ri’s avorite thing to eat And Hye-jinn is the one who will enable her to enjoy it at the end of her life. 

Beep: By doing her dental work pro bono, or at least not beyond what she can afford. She does extra work for her. I know it. I love Gam-ri. Okay. So first of all, I would just like to note on a, just out there level, I love the clothing of the elders of this town, 

CC: My god. They're amazing. 

Beep: But it's just all over the place. It is colorful and patterned and doesn't match.
And I love it. It's just, we put on what we had and we look good doing it and it's fine. 

CC: Yup. 

Beep: It makes me so happy for those ladies. So Gam-ri reminds me so much of my great aunt and my great grandmother. She's I mean, it's a world apart, but you have this interesting connection of, you know, a made up South Korean town and the Southern United States where I grew up, you could not come to their homes without being fed.

It didn't matter what time of day it was. What sort of meal, if you could tell them, I just ate. It does not matter. You are not leaving that place without eating. And that just reminds me of, you know, her so much playing with Chief Hong. She's always gonna feed him. I love the interaction that they have here. I laughed when she harmed herself, he immediately showed up. I mean, he is going to be there when he, once he realizes that she is harmed, he is so worried about her ankle. He wants to get her to the doctor, you know, and she's like, no, whatever.

She wants to go to the community center and watch her show with everybody.  

CC: Yes. Me too, Gam-ri.

Beep: That also reminds me though, of, I mean, not only like must-see TV Thursday for, you know, younger people, but during the day though, you know, back in the day, the soaps. I mean, you were going to your grandma's not going to miss that. 

CC: Oh yeah. This is like my Cuban abuela and all of her friends watching the telanovela. It's like, you're, you're not going to miss it. And there's only like you've got your group that are following the plot. I mean, really it's just basically like old lady Twitter TV. It's just in person. 

Beep: My favorite thing is he offers to go with her to watch it with her, which is so sweet. You know, he doesn't want her to go. He knows that she's injured and she's like, you don't even know the plot. This is why this is what speaks to my soul. I don't just want someone to sit here with me and absorb this content.

We're gonna talk about this. It's about to get real up in here. So I need my people who know exactly what's happening. They've watched the last 50 years of this. That's obviously exaggerating, but they know everything that's happened so we can have a discussion. Like, I appreciate that. You're trying to, you know, do this gesture, but I need to go to the community center because I have to watch TV with my people.

CC: Yeah. 

Beep: But I love it. And he's carrying her, which obviously is so indicative of so many things. And even in the way that she, you know, metaphorically carried him as she helped him stay alive. But, and I think you pointed this out too, but in my notes, I said, he tells Hye-jin later when he has to carry her, he always tells her that she's heavy as a rice sack.

I actually looked that up. I was just curious about the numbers. But it’s well beyond –not that heavy. 

CC: So he's like always using it as like a, like a term of endearment, you know, like he, Chief Hong shows his affection by carrying people literally on his back. And we should know the fact that he's joking around about weight with Hye-jin is a sign of the affection that he is feeling for her because that's how he acted with Gam-ri, who is his person. 

Beep: Yeah.

CC: When I first watched this, I thought that the scene, the scenes between Chief Hong and Gam-ri were meant to let the audience know that, look, this guy may seem a little standoffish and it's kind of giving, I mean, he's helping Hye-jin, but he's also kind of giving her a hard time. But he's the kind of guy –what you need to know is –he's the kind of guy who comes running when a grandmother has sprained her ankle and drops everything. That is not something that all 30 year old, particularly 30 year old single men do not, even for their families, because what we will, what we will learn later is that Gam-ri’s son and granddaughter don't have the time to even have a meal or have a phone conversation with her.

So it's not only sort of emblematic of, of the difference of what it's like to live in a community, you know, in a community like this, but also the kind of person that Chief Hong is. And, and we see him with her and in kind a different way than we have watched. You know, it's a stark contrast to Hye-jin.

He's smiling, he's joking, he's sweet, he's caring. He's putting ice on her ankle. He's carrying her on his back, across the village, right? Like it really is a, in the same way that watching Hye-jin take care of a child who has had their tooth knocked out this scene with Chief Hong and Gam-ri at least on first watch. You're like, okay, you're giving me some important information. I need to know about what kind of person he is.

But, when you rewatch it, watch the scene at the end of episode 15, when we see in flashback, when he gets the text message from her. And what I think is so interesting here is that she's saying, oh, you know, why are you carrying me? I must be so heavy. And he says, well, I'm returning the favor, right? You fed me as a child. And she's like, what choice did I have? Well, there, lots of people would make a different choice, right? She's the kind of person who takes the time to do that. And, and to have literally fed the orphan that's in the village, right? That's not something that everybody does.

But he frames his, when he says I'm grateful, he frames it as simply being grateful for what she did for him as a child. What we now know is that his life was so busy when he was working as an investment banker In Seoul that just like her son and her granddaughter, he didn't have time for her either. He had almost forgotten her. 

Beep: Yeah.

CC: So even with Gam-ri, Chief Hong is not being fully honest. When he says I'm grateful that now honestly is like so meaningful because he is grateful to her because she saved his life. 

Beep: Literally, in such a small way.

CC: Right, because she remembered him and wanted to bring him food, which is what she had always done. And he was so busy. He had almost forgotten her. 

Beep: Well pause for some eye leakage here.

CC: Yeah. It's fine. And of course her letter to him will recall this sort of the imagery that the direction of, of him literally carrying her on his back, as you mentioned, it's what she did for him. And it is the metaphor for what people can do for one another. Like that, that is physically like a representation of what community means that when someone is either in the case of Chief Hong, a child who needed something to eat, who had lost his grandfather or was suicidal on a bridge. She carried him on her back and now she's towards the end of her life. She has a sprained ankle. He carries her on his back. 

So that takes us to sort of the section that is. Hye-jin kind of coming to her decision to kind of strike out on a new path and, you know, there's some great, again, details that just sort of the masterful acting, when she, I mean, you could imagine at this point, she's like, dude, this guy works with the sauna to, oh my god, everywhere. 

Beep: That’s even my first question was when does he sleep?

CC: He doesn't, right?

Beep: No. 

CC: No. 

Beep: No, he can't. So he's Exercising in the Moonlight too.

CC: And yeah. Right. Like the fact that he's working at night and not right, is one of those things that you're like, oh, he's a really hard worker. And then later on, you're like, oh, he literally can't sleep. Right. You'd rather be working than, you know, like in the next episode where he pulls an all-nighter doing the remodeling on her office, he'd rather be doing that than kind of have to sit with his nightmares.

You know, we associate the Romanticist part of the show a lot with Chief Hong, but Hye-jin is often also shown contemplating things while looking at those. And here she is on a rooftop under the moonlight. You've got this beautiful shot of the fishing boats at night, all lit up and it's really pretty.

And she wishes her mother a happy birthday. And it calls back to the conversation that she had at the restaurant of the harbor, reminding you of your mother's embrace. She's wishing wherever her mother is happy birthday, while looking at the ocean.

And you have this like urbanitet sleeping outside on a rooftop, she wakes up that morning. She thinks that she's leaving town. She gets her car jump-started. But when she gets this phone call from her old boss, again, totally flies off the handle. Right. Because she's impulsive Hye-jin. She literally makes a U-turn in the middle of the road. If you can't signpost an arc that I am making a U-turn and literally driving back to Gongjin to change the course of my life. It is like quite literal. 

And I just like, if we could just like, think for a moment. In both sort of like how. It is impulsive. And she later knows this about herself. Like, you know, me, I, I made a very impulsive decision to come here. I don't like to sit with things. I like to be decisive and I make call and I run with it.

She is so brave to do this, like starting your own dental practice in a place you've never lived. Even as a professional hanging a shingle and having to rely on completely your own professional judgment and making calls and not having colleagues to lean on. Right? Like you're on your own. Not just in a place that you've never lived in, but also just as a professional. It is a really, really brave thing. 

Beep: Especially when it's a small place. And though they've indicated, you know, this is something they don't have and something they could need. You have no idea what that business is going to look like because they might either have someone out of town already, or maybe they've gotten used to just like not using that service and may not be setting aside money for it or that sort of thing. So from a business decision, this is wild.

CC: Yeah. I mean, she did, again, she did her research, right? So just like she doesn't wildly purchase expensive shoes. She waits until she has the promo code. She has done her research in it. She knows it has the potential for financial upside and that, and that she can't afford the rent or the loans to open a business the city. But it's much cheaper to do it here. So it's got upside, but boy, does it have risk

That brings us to Hye-jin walking up this hill to the boat on her own and it's such a great parallel to the bookend of how the series ends.

So she is at the beginning of her journey right. And she is kind of confused, annoyed walking up this hill in, still in her flip-flops on on this rocky path uphill by herself up to this boat on the hill where Chief Hong is waiting. She doesn't understand why boat is there, she's not sure who it at first. She doesn't know who she's walking towards.

The ends with her running hand in hand with him down that hill and to her future that is now realized. It's such a beautiful and symbolic way especially with how the director then ends the series to have these two parallelS of her going uphill by herself towards him which is also how episode two is going to end– going up rocks by herself without sure footing towards him where he is alone and she doesn’t understand a lot about him– to how the series ends them running hand in hand.

And of course it's the first we hear that infectious lalala Romantic Sunday theme song right after he just kind of grins and says “I am Chief Hong.” 

Which is also just kind of what I you know not only is that and Beep, I know that you didn't watch a live, but that song is like one of those like rare theme songs it becomes kind of a pop culture thing in of itself associated with a show that people would just sort of be like “lalala I want it to be Sunday” like to watch the show.

But also when it's used is always at the end of an episode usually during an epilogue when there is going to be something in the narrative reveal to us but then it goes away. So when the drama takes sort of more serious turn —and I can't remember if it's the first episode doesn't end is the kind of sadder song that ends the I love you on the beach scene. It goes away for a few episodes and and you kind of don't realize how much you missed until they drop it on you at the very end of the series of sort of the celebratory farewell. 

So that brings us to the epilogue which we have talked about in general plays with point of view. And this show is going to kind of play with this epilogue twice with point of view. So first it gives us the day's events in a limited sense from Chief Hong's point. And it does so in a way that you know he still is sort of and I think in some interviews Shin Ha-eun said you know she kind of had to be strike a balance between giving us hints to who he is while still keeping that sort of central, protecting that central mystery that she's going to leave to the end.

But these epilogue at least in these early episodes often give us a window into what he's been up to if that makes sense.

Beep: Well he's a very internal character and instead of just allowing him to be that way the cinematography utilizes montages or different you know times of him standing back or that so that we can jump into that perspective.

CC: It's really important for building empathy for the character because not only do the epilogues often show us what observing how he's emotionally reacting to things or what he's doing for somebody else often Hye-jin that we didn't know during the course of the episode but it also later on shows us flashbacks ofthings that happen to him or him talking to the therapist right? They are our windows, our limited windows, it's something that she gradually unfurls into his point of view into his emotional state and into his story.

And the first occasion of it is what he was observing about Hye-jin. And it opens like as we mentioned the last podcast with him sort of being contemplative in the water. Like he's relaxing on the surfboard and and then the camera often shows us, the camera is behind his head so that we are firmly in his point of view and seeing what he is looking at. And throughout the day what he will later narrate and that's what's sort of so great is that all of there's like all these layers to peel back visually they're going to show us his point of view.

But then at the end of the show he's going to narrate for us his own point of view and bring us back to this moment. The way she narrates this episode. They're both like we were a mess and it was the worst. So what they agree on is that when the polar bear penguin met. it was a disaster. 

Beep: Yeah.

CC: But Hye-jin remembers it – and this is what we've been watching as you know like probably it wasn't just me, you probably thought I was extremely peculiar too because we've been watching her be like dude what is this guy's deal. What he reveals later to us is what we visually see:

“You said our encounter was on the worst terms. Not for me though. I saw a woman on the beach that day. She sat there for a long time but all I could see was sadness in her eyes and I couldn't get it out of my mind. So my eyes kept being drawn to her.”

And one of the things that I think is so beautiful about –you know there are a lot of love stories on TV– but what I think is so beautiful about this one, it is nexus between them is that they have both suffered huge losses. Maybe more ultimately Chief Hong more than Hye-jin but they both had childhoods defined by who they lost: a daughter losing her mother and watching her mother be ill and decline. And then obviously Chief Hong is an orphan but then like but that happened almost so young that then it's like this double having the rug pulled from under you because then the grandfather that raised him right that filled that void, he then know walked in on him, like not only lost him, but also in very traumatic way of finding him himself.

Beep: Yeah.

CC: So I find it so meaningful and beautiful that the thing that draws him ….There's so many romantic stories right where you play with sort of this like and the show will play with it too and have fun with it. This kind of slow-mo oh it was like love at first sight because the person the woman is so beautiful or the man is so handsome. He's drawn to her because she's sad and lonely and finamentally he is too and he recognizes it.

Beep: You can see that in other people. And I think there are several different things that you can do with trauma but what it does in a lot of people if you're paying attention to it at all is deepen your empathy for others. And I know that that comes up textually in Ted Lasso saying I realize then that I never knew what somebody else was going through, I was going to be kind to them anyway.

Not that trauma is ever a good thing but it can breed a deep empathy towards shared humanity. And you can see that pain in other people. And I don't mean the pain specifically of having lost a parent or whatever. But if you have any trauma in your life you recognize it in others.

CC: Yeah. I mean he's so for as opposite as they are and how much this episode is played with that, they both are people who have come to a place to seek solace and grapple with feelings of sadness or wanting you know I mean in the next episode we're going to see Chief Hong fishing which is what his grandfather's profession was alone by the ocean. 

And so he sees in her that unlike the other people doing all of things that people do at the beach enjoying themselves. She sitting lonely and sad looking at the ocean and he knows exactly what that is even if he doesn't know the source of it. And he's going to that empathy –this is the beginning of it right. Because that empathy that he has, because of his own life experience, that he notices all of those little breadcrumbs right. In the car when she says I lost my mother, when she's in the city watching a mother and a daughter and a wedding. He recognizes all of that because of his own life experience And she will too. Like even you know when she's intoxicated and he looks upset and she's like I know that look, that means you want to cry.

Beep: Because I've seen it in the mirror.

CC: Right. And so I mean and then you know what he observed throughout the day are the things that he learns about her. She's sad and lonely. She takes time out of her day to help children that she didn't know. Even though she was complaining and really didn't want  —she's laughing and having fun and smiling with the grandmothers doing a task that she didn't want to do. And you know obviously it's with this like beautiful cinematography, but she's laughing with Gam-ri. And all of that culminating in sort of like this— I mean this was the moment where I was like okay this is a cute show. This is the moment where I sat up and they played with this point of view and I was like okay this show's doing something interesting now.

Beep: Those scenes when she was working with them remind me so much too have a town America when you have farmers. Because our time that of of delightful older ladies sitting around and like straw hats and you know actually the same basic type of clothing. They were always either shucking corn or shelling peas, obviously no squid involved there.

CC: Yeah but it's communal.

Beep: Yeah, it is communal. They would always sit in a circle when they did it. And that task was pretty rote was nothing particularly difficult about it just took time. When they would spend that time together you know just continually but you know like I said preparing the corn or the peas or whatever because obviously they have to be taken out of the shells.

CC: Yeah. And there is there is something about whether it's this show with the grandmothers processing squid or Crash Landing On You when the village ladies were making kimchi on the rocks that is this — you know there's obviously a very specific cultural meaning but anyone living in sort of an urban life no matter what country you're in you can when you watch that you feel this kind of, wow our work in the city is so solitary you know like where it's often just sitting at computers at a desk. We kind of lost this communal work where you can talk and share stories and come together sort of as a community.

Well you contrast that with Hye-jin at the beginning of the episode and how solitary her life was like as a professional working in the city. It's just a very interesting contrast that I think kind of cuts across many cultures when you when you're talking about sort the urban rural divide. 

Beep: Well especially from mean technological development across the world. So many of these things either don't really have to be done anymore or they're done you know because machines are involved or they're only done in super small places that then send it out and export it to others

CC: Yeah. And you know again this is a moment that never would have happened if technology had not completely failed.And it's a human connection because even though those ladies are going to be happy with her jogging outfit the next episode, it's ultimately going to be you know Gam-ri is important to Hye-jin too right? Hye-jin is somebody who didn't have a maternal figure in her life almost her entire life. So you know she feels that loss deeply at the end of the show in ways that really kind of reveal how her character has grown and this is where it starts for her as well. 

Beep: So what was one of your favorite either lines or parts from this. 

CC: You go first. I'm going to think about mine. 

Beep: So I would say that what I’m going to use as my favorite scene it's just because to me it was funny and it really flipped around what you were expecting is when Hye-jin goes to help the children the tooth. The little girl is just wailing. It’s not her tooth! Poor little boy. He's so calm. He's worried abouttaking care of her you know and making sure she can calm down when really he's the one who has blood in his poor little mouth. And I just think that's so sweet for many reasons. Their friendship I love throughout the whole show. I love her friendship with the two of them. That's kind of quiet and you know away from other people sometimes and the bond they share over the hedgehog. But I just love that  –the little wailing girl versus oh there's nothing wrong with you. Why are you screaming?

CC: Abecause she feels bad because it’s her fault.  I know I mean Yi-jun and Bo-ra — I was like I hope this is the beginning of like the Hometown Cha Cha Cha cinematic universe because if this is a prequel to whatever show and they're adults I will absolutely watch it.

But also I think that it's something we – I really want to keep my eye on as we rewatch because there are a lot of similarities between Yi-jun and Chief Hong in sort of like how smart they are right? And the math competition. But also there the these two children express their emotions and their dynamic right? Bo-ra is like more open emotions and she's so over the top and like what she thinks. Yi-jun is like much quieter and more serious. 

And there's a lot that kind of reminds me of what we learn about Chief Hong's biography as a child. And there's certain scenes that they have in later episodes that they almost are kind of like a parallel for Chief Hong and Hye-jin.

Beep: Absolutely yeah. And especially in the way that Yi-jun is always thinking about other people especially since his parents divorced like he just will not allow himself you know to have certain feelings. He's always just worried about what everyone else is feeling.

CC: Yeah. My favorite and I mentioned my favorite really is the epilogue. I was fascinated with how it played with point of view. And it made me really sit up and it was kind of like planting a flag in sand and saying there's always more going on here than it seems on the surface. And that even before we got that narration about what was going on in his head looking in the past from Du-sik in episode 16, you knew what that about. He was observing loneliness. He was observing  kindness. And I was like huh, that's not only what he's focusing on, but maybe that's what the show is going to focus on.

Beep: Right. Well if you want a little bit more emotional one than Gam-ri and Du-sik is that whole scene with them I love and adore but comedically it's the children and the teeth.

CC: Well so it's looking like this podcast is going to be about one podcast per episode. 

Beep: We should have known.

CC:  We should have known. It's par for the course with us but you know the writing definitely deserves it so we're we're happy to spend the time if you all are happy to spend the time with us. 

Beep: Thank you so much for listening. Please remember to go to our website streaming banshees.com. There you can sign up for our updates. You will never miss anything coming from us.

Next time, hopefully we will be covering episode two. We appreciate you guys so much for joining us.

And until then may we all find a balance between being nosy and focusing on ourselves. 

We'll see you soon.